Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Interview With A Master by Jason Luke ~ The Tour

On Monday, we were thrilled to be part of Jason Luke’s world tour. Jason wrote four paragraphs live on our Facebook Page in response to suggestions from our followers and so ere they are compiled in a post for you to read in case you missed it.

Warning: contains mild spoilers

First up – the suggestion was a paragraph of Jonah Noble in his study.

I sat alone in the dark. Outside my window a grey blanket of clouds hung low over the distant mountains. I could see the faint wink of far off lights like pinpricks in the night as scudding mist hung like a shroud, smearing away the mountain peaks and wrapping the twilight sky in a heavy grey blanket.
My eyes drifted back over the darkening shapes of my desk: files, paperwork, a dust-covered statue of the Egyptian deity, Horus. I closed my eyes and sat back heavily in the chair.
Dust to dust…
Not a minute passed that I didn’t think of Leticia; recall the brilliant, disarming flash of her smile, or the innocent beauty of her features, or the quizzical way she tilted her head and watched me as I paced the room telling my story.
Not a minute passed where the pain in my chest and the ache in my heart did not threaten to well up tight and strangle me.
Sometimes doing the right thing can feel so very wrong.
Would that line be my epitaph?
I mussed darkly. Would that noble sentiment be the words carved into my headstone – the phrase the world would remember me by?
I muttered the line out loud, and the words jagged in the back of my throat like broken shards of glass.

Second suggestion – Jonah and Leticia in a car crash

Blurred movement burst from my left – a dark shape exploding through the intersection. Suddenly the air was filled with the scream of wailing tires and I had just an instant to reach out for Leticia before the vehicle collided into the side of the car with shattering force.
I heard Leticia scream. I saw Tiny in the driver’s seat, wrestling frantically with the steering wheel.
Time slowed…
And then stood still.
I felt myself shunted across the seat as the side of the car folded in. Metal screeched and the impact was like a hammer-blow. I felt the air driven explosively from my lungs and then my vision began to blur as warm fresh blood spilled down across my face and into my eyes.
I turned my head slowly. Leticia was a crumpled mess. She had been thrown head-first against the glass of the passenger door. She lay perfectly still in a tangle of arms and I heard my self cry out in pain and despair as I reached out for her and frantically groped to find a pulse.
There was none…

Third choice – Jonah’s thoughts on living his life

I stared out through the office window and the night became dark until the room felt like a tomb.
The darkness – it had become my friend. It hid me away from the world, and left me alone with my misery. It wrapped itself over me like a thick veil and left me in peace to mourn a life I would never get to live.
I thought back bitterly over the opportunities I had missed, the chances that had passed me by.
The loves I had lost…
I shifted in the chair and the soft leather creaked and groaned. I sighed bitterly. I was old before my time – old and worn down by despair and regret and bitterness.
And I was angry.
I hated God. I hated fate. I hated everything that had conspired to rob me of a life.
I wanted to seize it back. I wanted one more chance to have what everyone else in the world had. The one thing I had lost.
I wanted a future…

Fourth, and my fave, Drunk Dial Dammit!!

“Jonah… Jonah… is that youuuu?”
I held the phone’s receiver hard against my ear and frowned. There was a riot of sound in the background, and overlaid above it was the slurred voice of a woman.
“This is Jonah Noble,” I said. “Who is this?”
There was a giggle of laughter and then a young woman’s voice came loud in my ear. “It’s me, you big boo-boo! It’s your luscious little Le-tit-ia,” she drew the sound of her name out so that the second syllable was emphasized. Then she burst out into a riot of laughter. “I just said tit!”
I felt my frown deepen, and my mood grew darker. “You’re drunk.”
I heard Leticia gasp, the sound like some naughty school-girl who had been caught smoking. “No!” she wailed. “I’m not drunk… Jonah, with a boner! I’m horny. I’m horny as hell and I want to lick my way from your toes to your… thingy!”
“Thingy?” I repeated. I switched the phone to my other ear. “You’re drunk,” I said again. “Call me back when you know how to talk dirty like a real woman, not a little child.”
I put down the phone.
And then I started laughing.